Creation Corner
Creation Day 6: Man
On Creation Day 6, after God made the land animals, He made man. Evolutionists insist that man came billions of years later. Not so, according to many investigators who follow evidence where it leads.
Creation Day 6: God’s Greatest Achievement
The New American Standard Bible (Genesis 1:26-31) briefly describes the making of man:
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “ Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so. God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
This passage says four important things:
- Human beings look like God. They are the closest things on God’s earth that looks like Him. So all attempts to make things on earth to look like God are plain foolishness. When the idol makers distort what man looks like (Chinese “gods” with tall brain pans; Canaanite “goddesses” with many breasts; etc.), they act even more foolishly.
- Human beings are ruling stewards of the earth. Man is not lower than nature. He is a part of nature, and higher than the wild.
- God told human beings to multiply. So “population control” breaks Divine orders.
- The first food for animals and man, before the Fall, were fruits and vegetables. This would not hold forever; under the Noahide laws, God lets man eat flesh as well. But at least one dietary theorist cites Genesis 1:29 to say that the proper diet for man is a vegan diet, or at least a fructo-vegetarian one.
Then this chapter says another, all-important thing: God has finished his creative work. The Hebrew phrase, that most translators render as “very good,” is mo’ed tov. This means more than “good.” It means absolutely excellent, with no room to improve it. Creation Day 6 closes Creation Week, and leads to God’s day of rest.
The evolutionary view
Vitruvian Man, the most famous of all anatomical drawings. Graphic: Leonardo da Vinci.
Evolutionists, of course, do not recognize Creation Day 6 or any Creation Day. They insist that life shapes and re-shapes itself constantly. And it has done this for at least 3.8 billion years.
The real evidence poses two problems. One is trying to tell exactly how man “evolved,” and from what. No one seriously says that man came from monkeys. Instead, anthropologists tell us that man came from chimpanzees. The reason: of all the apes, or simians (all names for “animals that look like man”), chimpanzees are closest to man, in how they look, and in their chromosomes and genes.
But where are the “evolving” chimpanzee fossils? Where is the link between chimpanzee and man? The link is—you guessed it—missing.
Walter T. Brown has assembled many other contradictions, misunderstandings, and outright frauds that make mockeries of anthropology. Piltdown Man is the obvious fraud. Peking Man (Homo erectus) turns out to be an ape that men ate. Java Man and Ramapithecus were also apes. Nebraska Man was lower than that: a pig!
Another finding embarrasses evolutionary theory further. Human fossils have turned up in “deep time.” No modern person buried these fossils. No one disturbed those rocks after they fell into place. These are Flood casualties. They therefore give the lie to another evolutionary canard:
If the Global Flood killed every man and woman alive but eight, where are the bodies?
The fact of the matter is: scientists have found them. And they don’t want to talk about it.
Creation Day 6 vindicated: Neanderthal Man
In sharp contrast, Neanderthal Man turns out to be all man, and neither ape nor link, missing or otherwise. Dr. Jack Cuozzo, in 1998, published the first work (Buried Alive: The Startling Story of Neanderthal Man). Dr. Cuozzo trained as an orthodontist, one who specializes in straightening people’s teeth. So he did the obvious thing that no anthropologist had done before. Beginning in 1979, he took x-rays of Neanderthal skulls, the first in history. He applied to those films the same insights he had developed after looking at thousands of x-rays of his human patients. He concluded, and published, that Neanderthal Man was a true man. Furthermore, Neanderthal Man matured very slowly, much more slowly than does modern man. Cuozzo concluded that Neanderthal Man’s dentition locked in place after many decades, not the two for humans, and that Neanderthal Man lived for hundreds of years. Genesis chapter 5 hints at the same thing. Therefore, Neanderthal Man is a subset of pre-Flood man. (See also Cuozzo J, “Early Orthodontic Intervention: A View from Prehistory,” The Journal of the New Jersey Dental Association, Vol. 58, No. 4, Autumn 1987, pp. 33–40. Note that Dr. Cuozzo is now a Creation Science Hall of Fame inductee.)
Summary
On Creation Day 6, the last day of creation, God made his best work: man. God did not “try and err” in anything, and certainly not when making human beings. Anyone who takes an honest look at the evidence can see this.
Related:
- Creation Day 6: Creatures Great and Small
- Creation Day 5: Swimmers and flyers
- Creation Day 4: Age of the universe
- Creation Day 4: The Big Stretch
- Creation Day 3: The great planting
- Creation Day 3: Dry land
- Creation Day 2: Fire in water
- Creation Day 2: Firmament
- Creation Day 1: Light
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Terry A. Hurlbut has been a student of politics, philosophy, and science for more than 35 years. He is a graduate of Yale College and has served as a physician-level laboratory administrator in a 250-bed community hospital. He also is a serious student of the Bible, is conversant in its two primary original languages, and has followed the creation-science movement closely since 1993.
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I still think that the primary reason for some people to reject the historical account of Genesis, is, because they want to find a convenient excuse to rationalize their particular godless lifestyles. Hence, they cop onto the pseudo science religious belief of evolution.
Nathan M. Bickel
thechristianmessagedotorg
moralmattersdotorg
With all due respect, pastor Bickel, you talk about “convenient excuses” immediately after an article claiming prehistoric man lived for hundreds of years. Based on a theory propagated by somebody who just happens to have been inducted into the Creation Hall of Fame, where the owner of this site happens to be a director.
And neither of you have yet explained why there are two totally different creation timetables withing a few chapters of each other in Genesis. Nor why you quote the accepted time line, but hold on to the belief that Eve came from Adam’s rib, which is in the second timeline.
JT – Re: Your May 14, 2012 at 6:21 am comment,
Would you care to elaborate? What is it that you think is so difficult to understand an / or reconcile?
Read Genesis 1;1-5 and then Genesis 2:4-25.
In the first, Adams comes about on the 6th day. In the second, he comes about on the 3rd day – specifically before the creation of plants and animals. In addition, it’s here that Eve is created from his rib.
Therefore you cannot claim that man was created on the 6th day, and that Eve was created from his rib (which is the excuse conservative Christians use to say that women are inferior to men). They’re from two different stories.
Whereas in Genesis 1 it specifically states: “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
I know you all see the Bible as the absolute Word of God… but the question is, which Word is correct? It can’t be both.
You’re missing something, something that a lot of people miss: Genesis comprises several different narratives. The creation narrative, and the Annals of Adam (beginning with Genesis 2:4b), overlap. Beginning with that verse, Adam tells his own story, and those of several other characters whom he would know.
Call me skeptical but where exactly do you find that? There is not a single shred of evidence that Adam wrote a word. If the man couldn’t wear clothes, how on earth did he learn to write… and what did he write on and with? And what other people would Adam know? It was only him and Eve and the kids… ok, and the mysterious people in the land of Nod. And why should Adam tell a vastly different story from the original? Is he disagreeing with God, after all, he was there, he should remember if the animals and plants came after him.
For that matter, if Adam is telling the story from Gen 2:4, then who exactly wrote the first bits?
It also doesn’t explain how Christianity goes from “He created man and woman together in his image” to “Whoops, no, sorry! Eve came from Adam’s rib.”
If that’s Adam’s narrative, then it sounds like he was making things up.
You’ve forgotten already that Adam lived for nine hundred thirty years. Furthermore, God made him as an adult, so he already had a thirty-year head start.
Terry, will you please, for ONCE, stop banging on about what you believe evolution is about and read something that tells you what it’s about.
The only people claiming humans evolved from chimpanzees are people like you who don’t understand evolution. Humans and chimpanzees both evolved from a common ancestor, the most-recent common ancestor having lived roughly 7 million years ago. The two species of chimp diverged from each other some time later, while the species called homo sapiens split off from other hominid branches around 2 1/4 million years ago.
These days (as I understand it) Neanderthals aren’t considered a truly separate species, rather they are a subspecies that almost certainly interbred with modern man. The typical modern designations are hom. sap. neanderthalensis and hom. sapiens sapiens.
I really wish you’d read something written by a proper scholar instead of the self-perpetuating delusions of your fellow creationists.
Am I supposed to apologize to a “scientific community” that can’t even keep its narrative straight? They flip-flop worse than the putative President, and that’s a sad fact.
If you mean that science updates its statements according to new evidence, instead of fixating on the contents of a bronze age book written by several different groups of nomadic goat-herders, then Yes, science “flip-flops”.
Evidence? I have shown you evidence. Which what you call “science” willfully ignores. Don’t tell me about “updating statements according to new evidence.”
You have provided nothing. If you mean those links to creationscience.com, the information there has been debunked many times. For instance, the Castenedolo skull and Reck’s Skeleton were both proved to have been later burials. The trouble with you and those of your ilk is that you wilfully ignore any evidence that contradicts your views. Scientists, on the other hand, look carefully at new evidence and either adapt their theories to fit or, as here, come up with proof that enables the anomalies to be discarded.
Nobody says that humans evolved from chimps. Humans and chimps evolved from the same ancestor.
Why is it that these creation scientists never publish in peer-reviewed journals? Instead of appealing to fellow scientists they turn to the public. And dont give me any of that “it wouldn’t be accepted by the scientific community” nonsense. We both know he never tried to properly publish it. The fate of neanderthals is currently debated, and I am certain that people would be very interested in the theory that neanderthals were just an isolated branch of homo sapiens.
Because thats how science works. Some people put forward an idea and others try and shut it down. And repeat. Thats why scientific paradigm changes, or “cant stay straight” as you put it. Because scientists are willing to accept that their theories can be wrong if evidence is brought forth to prove the contrary. Unlike creationist “science”, which by definition cannot be proven wrong.
Even if neanderthal’s were actually homo sapiens (which they weren’t, according to DNA evidence, which I trust over teeth), then what about all of the other defined pre-human species? Like Homo erectus, Homo habilis, and Australopithecus?
“Peer review” is just another mechanism to shut out anything that could possibly support a creation narrative.
Nope. Peer review is a mechanism to ensure that proper scientific methodology was followed. It doesn’t judge the conclusions of a paper; it judges the methods used to reach those conclusions.
If someone produced a paper that used valid scientfic methodology to prove a creation they would be mobbed by scientists wanting to give their support to it and gain some reflected glory from the inevitable Nobel Prize. There is nothing scientists like more than overturning a previously accepted theory and replacing it with their own work. Nobody would remember Einstein if he’d proved Newton was right, would they?
I’ve been there. There is no mechanism to stop “peer reviewers” from judging the conclusions of a paper, and rejecting said conclusions because they don’t “fit the narrative.” None.
“There is no mechanism to stop “peer reviewers” from judging the conclusions of a paper, and rejecting said conclusions because they don’t “fit the narrative.””
Then why do so many peer-reviewed papers that challenge or overturn what you insist on calling “the narrative” get published?
Scientists love exploding previously accepted theories. And if there was actual scientific evidence for a creation it would get published, because everyone involved in that publication would be guaranteed a place in the hall of fame for centuries to come.
rpeh – Re: Your May 14, 2012 at 6:54 am comment,
Would you care to elaborate on that “roughly 7 million years ago” statement of yours? Why not be more specific? Or, weren’t you around then to witness the passing of time?
Seems to me, “rpeh,” that you are just repeating what one of the latest pseudo science religion journals would like you to believe………..
I said “roughly 7 million years ago” for several reasons: I’ll explain the most important two.
First, there never *can* be a clear cut-off point. As with neanderthals and modern man, differences between the proto-humans and the proto-chimps would have been relatively minor, and the two emerging groups would have been able to interbreed for some time. That in itself makes defining a clear point impossible.
Second, not everything fossilizes and even if it did we wouldn’t have all the fossils, and even if we did, dating processes aren’t perfect. That adds three extra error bars to any possible estimate.
I picked my choice of words because the more-accurate “some time between about six and eight million years ago, although some sources believe it could have been as recent as four” felt unnecessarily verbose.
I’ll not bother with the “were you there?” line, as JT has already disposed of it below.
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I’m guessing that by “willfully ignores” you mean that Dr. Jack Cuozzo never submitted his work for peer review and instead wants to debate people on right he is?
Where have I heard that before?
@Pastor Bickel: Oh dear, not the old “were you there argument?” Tell me, were you there at the Creation? Adam wasn’t even there for the first 5 days.
What kind of accurate record do you have? Or are you just repeating what a 2,000 year old book, written by pasturalists, would like you to believe?
Consider the following statement of Terry’s, which follows orthodox beliefs, but also sets up a fundamental problem with another basic aspect of Judeo-Christianity, namely that God is all-powerful and all-knowing:
“God did not “try and err” in anything, and certainly not when making human beings.”
So God creates humans, by design, in a way you say could not be improved upon. But God also is omniscient and omnipotent, and therein lies the problem.
If all of the above is true, God designed Adam and Eve with the built-in fallibility that allowed her to be tempted by the serpent, and for him to go along with her suggestion. The defense that God giving us “free will” puts the blame on us doesn’t hold, because there’s a difference between having the free will to make a choice and having the aptitude to make a good choice.
Eve had to choose between listening to the God who created her, or to an animal. Adam had to choose between listening to the God who created him, or to his mate. In Genesis, both of them lacked the competency to make the right call, so while God created humans with the ability to make choices freely, they were created by design without the wisdom or intelligence to choose not to break a simple, clear rule.
And in the same narrative, it was God who created the serpent and allowed it to live in the garden. Nowhere in Genesis does it say that this is the devil or anything but one of the animals God had created Himself. In fact, the serpent is punished by God in Genesis 3:14-15 by being cursed “among all livestock and all wild animals”.
So unless you’re prepared to argue that God created animals with free will in addition to humans, what takes place in Genesis is a scenario that is the direct consequence of God’s advance planning.
God creates Man and Woman to be able to make their own choices, but rather than making them “absolutely excellent, with no room to improve it”, they’re both actually quite gullible.
God creates the serpent along with the other animals, all to His design, and the serpent, which has no free will and simply lives as it was designed to, suggests to one of the humans that she breaks the only rule they had to obey.
Not only is her wisdom insufficient to choose obedience to her creator over an animal, but Adam’s is just as bad. That’s a system with twol levels of redunancy breaking down – hardly a design that cannot be improved on.
The key is this, however – if God is omniscient, then every future outcome of creation was known to God even before Day 1. Since God is also omnipotent, none of the actions that took place since Creation would be allowed to take place unless God allowed it. You can make the argument that everything we do is the result of our choices, but unless you believe that God is not omniscient and omnipotent, then we’re just like falling dominoes, following a pattern designed and set into motion by God in the first place.
I don’t believe that about our lives, and that’s why I can’t accept Genesis as a literal history of anything. Feel free to explain otherwise, though.
I can’t use a reply button the Terry’s comment, so I’ll post here.
So you’re saying Adam was senile? But I thought he was born with perfect genes and it’s the subsequent loss of information that proves the young earth. In addition there is no proof at all that Adam had a “30 year head start.” For all you know he could have been in his teens. After all, it was not uncommon for teenagers to be seen as adult even as recently as the early 20th century.
Even if you’re saying that he invented writing and passed his words on to presumably Moses, it still doesn’t explain why there’s two totally different creation stories. Why would he write down both?
It’s funny, you have a go at scientists for changing the story, or making things up, but here you’re doing exactly the same. Show me where in the Bible it says Adam wrote this part when he was a doddery old man. And show me where he was created, already 30 years old. He died at 930, but there’s nothing to prove he lived for 900 years.
It doesn’t exist. You’re either making it up, or blindly believing something you’ve been told with no back-up. Which is again something you accuse evolutionists of doing.
Senile? Not at all. I said that he had 930 years to watch a civilization grow, and perhaps to invent writing himself.
Ok, but you still haven’t addressed the other issues I raised.
“Dr. Cuozzo trained as an orthodontist”
And his training in palaeontology is…? His anthropological qualifications are…? His expert knowledge of Homo neanderthalis is…?
This is Walt Brown’s geology expertise all over again, isn’t it? You’re trying to overthrow well-established science on the word of a dentist.
Once again: because his conclusions don’t fit the narrative, you quibble about his credentials.
More that his conclusions are uninformed and worth anything. He looked at X-rays of teeth and concluded that the Neanderthal were Homo sapiens.
Never mind the scores of palaeontologists, anthropologists, archaeologists, biologists, zoologists and biochmists who have painstakingly studied every millimetre of every Neanderthal bone ever discovered, mapped their DNA, studied their artefacts and analysed their art. Some bloke who makes his money stapling wire to cheerleaders’ faces says “Science is wrong!!!” and you believe every word.
Terry, show me a real scientist who says Neanderthals weren’t a separate species and I’ll be fascinated and desperate to read more. But spare me your cranks.
I do not judge a scientific conclusion by the numbers of men lining up behind it. What you call “science,” in the hands of those fine up-standing professionals you named, has become a lie, agreed-upon.
And one more thing: I never led a cheer in my life. Nevertheless I also underwent orthodontic therapy for several years. Malocclusion is a real disease, not a pretend disease limited to young, vain women. I would surmise, from your condescending tone, that orthodontics is not something that a socialized medical system cares to train people to do. That makes it no less real or valuable.
Furthermore, an orthodontist must still train in the anatomy of the head and neck, and assist at oral surgery in the course of that training. He, more than any other physician, understands the development and maturation of the human dentition. If anyone would recognize Neanderthal Man as a true man, and neither simian nor transitional form, an orthodontist would.
You can have your “real scientists.” You make the same mistake that many people make, when you define the “reality” or the “purity” of a scientific discipline by the extent to which it provides no practical value whatsoever to people’s lives. I say the same of them as I say of any other wearer of the white smock who turns up his nose at an engineer: there is no such thing as non-practical knowledge, nor any sort of disinterested action. Your “real scientists” scorn those who use science for the purpose of life. In so doing, they deliver their science to the service of death—or, as in this case, to systematic mendacity, bunco, or the occasional forgery. You cannot, therefore, imagine that I have any use for them whatsoever.
“I do not judge a scientific conclusion by the numbers of men lining up behind it.”
Neither do I, and neither do scientists. Conclusions are judged on the evidence. However if the evidence – and therefore the conclusion – are almost universally accepted or rejected by scientists, that may say something.
“If anyone would recognize Neanderthal Man as a true man”
Nobody’s denying that they were true men; they just weren’t the same species as us.
You have just contradicted yourself. “True man” = Homo sapiens.
““True man” = Homo sapiens.”
Nope. Homo sapiens = Homo sapiens. Neanderthals, like every other member of the genus Homo, were human. They just weren’t us.
“when you define the “reality” or the “purity” of a scientific discipline by the extent to which it provides no practical value whatsoever to people’s lives”
Only one problem there, Terry: I don’t do that.
Says you, right now. But the way you carry on about what “real science” is, allows no other interpretation of your behavior.
“But the way you carry on about what “real science” is, allows no other interpretation of your behavior.”
No Terry, that’s just nonsense. My favourite scientist in the whole world is most definitely doing “real” science, and hopefully her work will lead to a breakthrough in the treatment of prion diseases. To claim that I insist real science must have no practical benefits is – dare I say it? – wilful misrepresentation.
His untested, unproven conclusions you mean, by somebody who is not qualified in either field, but knows something about straightening teeth. Anybody can make any nonsense up – as long as there are gullible people to believe it. That’s the difference between Cuozzo and science – science stands up to scrutiny, Cuozzo runs away from scrutiny.
I wasn’t aware you were an advocate of the whole Best of the Public gibberish.
Tell me, if an English professor turned around and said that he had worked out that the Bible is fake, wouldn’t you quibble about the fact that he has no background as a Biblical scholar?
Also, I see you’re still dodging my earlier questions.
I would ask what evidence said professor had. And by the way: English is not Hebrew, nor Greek, though the vocabularies of both are part of the inheritance of English.
I will tell you the same thing I told Mr. Mason: an orthodontist still must train in the anatomy of the head and neck, and assist at oral surgery during his training. You see, I happen to know something about the training of various specialties of healing. I also know about those who insist that “real science” can have no direct practical application, else it is not “pure.” That is your criticism, is it not?
“I do not judge a scientific conclusion by the numbers of men lining up behind it. ”
Which is exactly why you don’t understand science. Science is not one man going, “Oh, I think x, therefore it is!” which is what Walt and Cuozzo are doing. All you have now, are a bunch people publishing ideas that happen to coincide with your beliefs. However, until those ideas bare tested, they most certainly are not scientific, as much as you’d like them to be.
What you should have said, to be more honest, is “I do not accept a scientific conclusion that disagrees with my worldview, despite the numbers of men lining up behind it.”
“I would ask what evidence said professor had.”
But look! He’s published a book that sets out exactly why he thinks the Bible is wrong. It’s in a book! So it must be true!
That’s the logic you seem to be applying to the YEC hypotheses you claim to believe in.
“I would surmise, from your condescending tone, that orthodontics is not something that a socialized medical system cares to train people to do.”
I wouldn’t know; Germany doesn’t have socialised medicine.
But the United Kingdom has, as you well know.
“But the United Kingdom has, as you well know.”
It does indeed. However I haven’t lived there for a long, long time.
“The Hebrew phrase, that most translators render as “very good,” is mo’ed tov. This means more than “good.” It means absolutely excellent, with no room to improve it.”
If that’s the case why do those who speak Hebrew insist that baby boys actually can be improved, by hacking off parts of their genitalia? After all I assume that if an all-knowing, all-powerful creator didn’t want us to have foreskins he’d have created us without them.
Circumcision is a covenant sign, not an attempt to improve the species of man. And it’s also something recommended even for Gentiles. You have less risk of spreading HPV that way.
Well no. It’s recommended in the USA on evidence that is, at best, ambiguous. Outside the USA it’s practically unknown except among some religious groups, and the comparative STD rates between the USA and other industrialised countries suggest that it offers no advantage at all.
In any case, how is cutting bits off helpless people smaller than you a “covenant sign”? Wouldn’t hacking up your own genitals be more appropriate, as well as less morally repellant?
“Gentiles”
I don’t recognise that term as having any meaning, unless you meant “genitals.”
A comparison:
USA – Prevalence of male circumcision c.60%; prevalence of HIV infection 0.6%
UK – Prevalence of male circumcision c.1%; prevalence of HIV infection 0.2%
Germany – Prevalence of male circumcision <1%; prevalence of HIV infection 0.1%
This suggests that circumcision isn't doing much for HIV prevention, wouldn't you agree?
I wasn’t talking about human immunodeficiency virus. I was talking about the human papilloma virus. That is the causative agent of cervical cancer.
“I wasn’t talking about human immunodeficiency virus. I was talking about the human papilloma virus.”
Oh yes, I know. However there isn’t any real correlation between HPV infection rates and circumcision rates either. In fact in the USA the rates of both are declining. Australia has 60% of the USA’s incidence of cervical cancer and an eighth of its circumcision rate. In Germany HPV infection is almost exactly the same as in the USA and circumcision is almost unknown.
HPV is just the latest thing that circumcision has been claimed to prevent. Previously it was HIV. Before that it was penile cancer. Before that it was syphilis. In every case the apparent reduction in risk was less than the risk of circumcision itself.
The fact is that, nowadays, male circumcision is a largely Muslim and African practice that is also inflicted on most male Jews and a large but declining percentage of men in the USA. It’s extremely rare everywhere else and is not recommended as a routine procedure by any national medical association anywhere in the world. It carries its own risks, including damage to the urethra, destruction of the frenulum, meatal stenosis (nasty,) STD infection (syphilis, gonorrhoea or, ahem, HPV) as a result of ritual fellatio, penile deformation and stretching of the scrotal sac. One in every half million patients dies. Another one in a million lose their entire penis. 100 PERCENT suffer from keratinisation of the glans and the removal of 80% of the genital nerve endings.
In any case, surgical alteration should be a matter of individual choice. Personally I’d make it illegal to circumcise anyone below the age of 18 and anyone who hasn’t given written consent, except in cases of genuine medical necessity, and I’d prosecute offenders vigorously.
Now you add willful misrepresentation to your other sins. I was a pathologist once. That whole debate brings back memories of specimens I examined.
OK, fine. Just answer this question: does the USA – the ONLY western country where male circumcision is even common, let alone routine – have lower rates of STDs than all the others?
While you’re at it, are you denying that male circumcision removes around 80% of the male erogenous tissue and leads to keratinisation of the glans penis?
Is this what you have against the Jews, and against national Israel? Are we really cutting to the quick here?
“Is this what you have against the Jews”
Huh?
It’s certainly something I have against the people who (through either arrogance or ignorance) inflict an unnecessary and disfiguring mutilation on defenceless children, but apart from the distasteful aspect of mohels performing fellatio on infants I don’t find Jewish ritual circumcision any more or less repugnant than the cosmetic version.
“Is this what you have against the Jews”
And just to expand on that, as I’ve already pointed out to you male circumcision is mostly a Muslim and African phenomenon, with the majority of the remaining victims being in the USA. Israelis, and Jews in general, are an almost insignificant statistic compared to the rest.
I notice that you ignored my questions, by the way. Does the USA – the sole western country that routinely circumcises males – have lower STD rates than its peers? And does circumcision involve the removal of most of the male erogenous tissue and result in keratinisation (hardening) of the skin on the glans penis?
I believe the USA has lower rates of cervical cancer than its peers. As for the rest: I myself underwent circumcision earlier than I can remember. I never missed my foreskin. You ought to try it yourself.
“I believe the USA has lower rates of cervical cancer than its peers.”
Indeed it does – since the pap smear came into widespread use. It doesn’t have lower rates of HPV infection though. In fact it has a higher rate than most European countries.
“I myself underwent circumcision earlier than I can remember.”
And, of course, before you had the chance to consent to the operation.
“I never missed my foreskin.”
Of course you didn’t; you were never given the chance to experience it. You might as well say that you never missed your clitoris and breasts.
“You ought to try it yourself.”
Ha ha. No. Having conducted experiments with one of your fellow Americans, I can safely say that I’m not the only one who’d miss it.
Be realistic, Terry: how many men, when asked as adults if they want to have part of their best friend chopped off, are going to say yes?
“I never missed my foreskin.”
There’s a rather good website that gives a female perspective on the issue. It’s not really suitable for this forum though, so I’ll email you the link.
You’re d____d right it is not suitable for this forum. I consider it pornographic.
“You’re d____d right it is not suitable for this forum. I consider it pornographic.”
Then it’s just as well I showed enough respect for your site to not post it here, isn’t it?
No, I said “Gentile.” Which literally means “nations” or “nationals,” as in ethnics. It is the Latin-derived English word for anyone who is not a Jew.
“It is the Latin-derived English word for anyone who is not a Jew.”
I knew that, of course, and was attempting to gently make you aware of my feelings on the matter.
I don’t like being called a “gentile” any more than I like being called a “kuffar,” a “heathen” or indeed a “porridge wog” or “honky,” which is to say I object to it bitterly and find it highly offensive. I’m not a Jew, so why stick a Jewish label on me?
Why should you? Gentile is a neutral word.
And if you’re looking for consideration of your feelings, you’ll get none from this quarter. Not after the way you continue to behave. You’re blessed that I don’t take definitive steps to make sure that you never post here again.
So suck it up.
“Instead, anthropologists tell us that man came from chimpanzees.”
Uh, no. This is simply wrong. Anthropologists say no such thing.
YAW-AW-AWN! Call me again when they get their story straight.
But they do have their story straight, Terry. Nobody is saying that humans evolved from chimpanzees. At least, no scientifically literate person is saying that.
Then why do they harp on the alleged similarity between human and chimpanzee DNA? Why is that relevant?
“Then why do they harp on the alleged similarity between human and chimpanzee DNA?”
Please tell me that wasn’t a serious question.
You’re d____d right I’m serious! Now answer it!
“You’re d____d right I’m serious! Now answer it!”
Certainly, and I can do so easily. The genetic similarity between humans and chimps is significant because it proves that we both evolved from a common ancestor. Nobody is claiming it shows we evolved from chimps.
“the alleged similarity between human and chimpanzee DNA”
By the way, do you know much about endogenous retroviruses (ERVs)?
So? How do they prove evolution?
“How do they prove evolution?”
Very elegantly actually. ERVs are not part of our (or Cheetah the chimp’s) genome; they’re fragments of viral DNA that got pasted in there by accident. The chances of the exact same viral DNA with the exact same copying errors ending up in the exact same place in the genomes of two different species are so small as to defy description; the odds against it happening even once approach the number of electrons in the observable universe.
Humans and chimps don’t share one unique ERV that isn’t shared by any other species; we share at least seven. The total number of ERVs shared by humans and chimps – including those we both share with other species – is over 200,000.
Accident, again. Another myth, like “junk DNA.” No part of our genome is junk! Neither did any of it “get in there by accident.”
“No part of our genome is junk! Neither did any of it “get in there by accident.””
Debateable but irrelevant. As I said, ERVs aren’t part of our genome. They’re part of a virus genome that infected a germ cell in one of our ancestors.
Your assertion about “accidental foreign DNA” is not only relevant; it is the key assertion you make. An assertion I reject out-of-hand.
“An assertion I reject out-of-hand.”
Exactly what assertion are you rejecting out of hand? That ERVs really are viral DNA?
I noticed you dodged the topic again Terry, so I’ll ask you again.
What’s the difference between the validity of information contained in a book about the hydroplate theory, or old aged Neanderthals and somebody disproving the Bible?
Besides the former agreeing with your worldview, that is.
You happily accept one set of untested theories as correct, but you’d certainly reject the other. And yet, they have exactly the same amount of credibility.
That is why peer review is important – credibility. Let’s face it – creationists don’t even let other creationists peer review their work, because there is no single coherent model for creationism and they’re all scared that their theory – and thus the cash cow they can use to milk the public – will be discredited.
You keep saying that Walt Brown hasn’t tested his theories. If you would read his original material, you would find out that he has.
Really? What, he’s collapsed a planet’s crust and ejected super heated steam into outer space? Given that his “theory” was debunked over and over again on this very site, I think Walt is playing a bit loose with the term “test.”
You still haven’t answered the question. My hypothetical professor has tested his own theory too. (Here’s a hint – testing your own theory doesn’t make it right. That’s confirmation bias.)
So, ergo, he must be right.
“Human beings are ruling stewards of the earth.”
Do the bacteria know that? I only ask because for the past 200,000 years they’ve been using us as a combination of hotels and picnic baskets.
Make that six thousand years. Bacteria did not turn pathogenic until after the Fall.
“Bacteria did not turn pathogenic until after the Fall.”
Everything turned from perfection to fallible and/or bad after “the Fall”, and that whole line of belief depends on man being culpable despite God’s best intentions to the contrary.
Except that this is a self-contradiction if God is what God is supposed to be, and I explained why in an earlier comment above. Still haven’t seen a reply to show how it’s incorrect.
“Make that six thousand years.”
No. I can’t make the facts line up that way in my head. At this point in time the evidence for an old Earth is beyond any possible challenge.
“Bacteria did not turn pathogenic until after the Fall.”
Where does the bible say that, exactly?
Really? And where exactly does it say that?
Tot up the ages of various people when they had their named sons, reckon on given numbers of years after certain events, or years of reigns of various kings, and work backward from the destruction of the Temple by Nebuchadnezzar II, in 586 BC. (And don’t bother adding the extra “E” to the abbreviation.) It works out that creation took place in 4004 BC.
“Tot up the ages of various people when they had their named sons”
Yes Terry, but that’s just Ussher’s chronology and you can’t honestly expect anyone to take it seriously. There is a word for books where characters live to be 900 years old, and that word is “fiction.” Of course the talking animals should have tipped you off to that already; the fact is that the bible is every bit as credible a historical source as The Wind in the Willows, and for largely the same reasons – things happen in it that quite obviously aren’t true.
Anyway, where does the bible say that bacteria only became pathogenic after the Fall?
Well, I do take Ussher’s chronology seriously. I have no reason to doubt it.
Those men lived for 900 years because the population hadn’t gone through a severe bottleneck, nor were they eating fruits and vegetables laced with carbon-14. Those misfortunes would strike the family of Noah and their descendants.
“I have no reason to doubt it.”
Yes you do: it talks about people living to be 900.
“nor were they eating fruits and vegetables laced with carbon-14.”
*facepalm*
What??
You read that right. They were not eating fruits and vegetables that had incorporated carbon-14 into their substance. That’s because carbon-14 did not exist before the Global Flood. The Flood produced it, in bulk, by cluster decay from the newly transmuted uranium (and probably neptunium and plutonium, too) that formed in the magnitude-10-to-12 earthquakes attendant upon that Flood. After it was all over, the newly sprouting plants took up carbon-14 and produced fruits and vegetables tainted therewith. That’s our problem today, or part of it. (The other part is the population bottleneck involving eight people surviving out of a population of millions.)
So before the Flood, people lived past 900, and it was no big deal. After the Flood, the lifespan of man declined ninety percent in eleven generations.
The Carbon-14 Curse is still with us, and will so remain until Jesus comes back to end the world.
And by the way: if this does not happen, the human race is headed for certain extinction, and entirely from genetic causes.
“That’s because carbon-14 did not exist before the Global Flood. The Flood produced it”
Oh my.
Terry, the only way Carbon-14 wouldn’t have existed is if the Sun didn’t exist. Carbon-14 is produced by solar radiation acting on nitrogen in the upper atmosphere; it has nothing to do with earthquakes and the contribution from uranium decay is tiny. In any case it’s biologically identical to C12 and C13; it is not harmful to life in any way.
“the human race is headed for certain extinction”
Of course. That was never in any doubt.
Not harmful to life in any way?
What do you think happens inside a cell when an atom of carbon, valence 4, transforms instantly to an atom of nitrogen, valence 3? It changes the whole character of the molecule! A methyl group becomes an amino group. A cyclohexyl group becomes a lactam.
And you say it’s not harmful to life.
The amount of carbon-14 that you claim from solar radiation alone, is barely enough to replace the carbon-14 that decays.
But of course your narrative assumes that carbon-14 is, and always has been, in equilibrium. Trouble is, you assume that it’s in equilibrium, and then use carbon-14 dates to “prove” that it’s in equilibrium. Classic circular reasoning.
I’m sure there was a little bit of it, built up after 1,654 years. But not nearly as much as you find today. That amount got dumped into the atmosphere through cluster decay. And that occurred under very special circumstances, which do not obtain today.
“Not harmful to life in any way?”
Nope.
“What do you think happens inside a cell when an atom of carbon, valence 4, transforms instantly to an atom of nitrogen, valence 3?”
Irrelevant. It happens so rarely as to be insignificant. You suffer far more cell damage from neutrinos.
“The amount of carbon-14 that you claim from solar radiation alone, is barely enough to replace the carbon-14 that decays.”
Terry, we can measure how much C14 is produced by solar radiation, rather precisely. That’s where it comes from.
“But of course your narrative assumes that carbon-14 is, and always has been, in equilibrium.”
Nope. That’s why C14 dating needs a calibration scale.
“Trouble is, you assume that it’s in equilibrium, and then use carbon-14 dates to “prove” that it’s in equilibrium.”
Nope, that’s just wrong.
“That amount got dumped into the atmosphere through cluster decay.”
Show me just one bit of evidence for that. And I mean evidence, not self-published quackery.
Ok Terry once again it’s time to put up or shut up:
* Bacteria did not turn pathogenic until after the Fall
Where does it say this in the Bible? This is as bad as saying they only took baby dinosaurs onto the Ark, and that everything was vegetarian and only drank milk. You accuse science of changing its story (but that’s mostly because you don’t understand how science works, which is sad, given your background) and yet you expect people to believe stories like that? That have absolutely no basis in reality, apart from people making them up, so they can explain how Noah and 8 others fed a million animals (ignoring all the other problems associated with that little tale.)
Show me where in the Bible, is says that germs became pathogenic after the fall.
* That’s because carbon-14 did not exist before the Global Flood. The Flood produced it
You’re not even using the Bible here, but rather Walt’s pet theory that the entire world turned into a nuclear reactor, at the same time it’s crust was heated to melting point, and the super-heated steam caused by the jets was par boiling the atmosphere. And yet a few people on a wooden boat survived.
Outside of Walt’s untested theory (see, we’re back to my hypothetical lecturer writing about how the Bible is false) where is the evidence that the flood created carbon-14? Show me one non-creationist source that says C14 is 4,000 years old. You can’t.
The way you have to twist your reality to conform to the story you believe in is frightening. It’s no wonder you believe Obama is a Kenyan Muslim.
So, instead of handy throw-away lines, it’s time to start backing up your assertions.
I’ll just take one point in that screed: “Show me a non-creationist source that says that Carbon-14 is 4,000 years old.” Well, that’s the gag, isn’t it? Once you realize that Carbon-14 is 4,000 years old, you cease to be a uniformitarian and become a creation advocate. That is, if you weren’t a creation advocate before this. The creation model has no particular sine qua non. The evolution model is not self-consistent. It fails on any of a number of point, too numerous to mention here.
Answer the question! Show me where in the Bible it says that germs became pathogenic after the fall!
Well, I never said that the Bible did say that. But the Bible said that creation was absolutely excellent at first. It later says, in several places, that all of creation “groans” under the weight of sin. Meaning that Adam threw a monkeywrench into the works by disobeying Divine orders.
And how exactly does that translate into germs becoming pathogenic, and dinosaurs becoming meat eaters, etc, etc?
besides the ‘I’m making this up as I go along’ bit, of course.
“But the Bible said that creation was absolutely excellent at first. It later says, in several places, that all of creation “groans” under the weight of sin. Meaning that Adam threw a monkeywrench into the works by disobeying Divine orders.”
If you take Genesis literally, Adam and Even were most certainly not designed in an “excellent” manner, if they were as gullible as the story tells. If there was any monkeywrench thrown into the scenario, it would have been on God’s part, because:
– God designed both Adam and Eve with insufficient wisdom or reasoning ability to decide that obeying the one rule their Creator gave them was not as important as listening to the advice of a talking animal.
– God created the serpent Himself – no one else did, along with the ability to talk and to suggest breaking rules, and then dropped it into the garden where He knew in advance what the outcome would be.
– Even if the serpent was “the devil”, he was one of God’s creations too, and God, being omnipotent and omniscient, knew what would happen and permitted it because He had the ability to stop it if that was His desire.
So God sets up the dominoes, lets the dominoes fall without intervention, and then curses and punishes the two dominoes at the end of the chain for being part of the very sequence of events that He had planned for them in advance.
If you want to talk about Original Sin and disobedience to God justifying any penalty for humanity, you need to explain how the straightforward reasoning above is incorrect.
“Once you realize that Carbon-14 is 4,000 years old”
Instead of realising this, how about you try to demonstrate it? With evidence please.
And you’ll ignore the other points because you can’t answer them and just thinking about them makes you uncomfortable.
At least you’re right – the creation model fails on many, many points. It’s even possible to use all the theories put forward by creationists to prove that the Flood couldn’t have happened.
Only by using creationist sources, mind you.
Because that’s where peer review comes in, instead of every Tom, Dick and Harry publishing whatever they feel fits their current worldview.
If the scientific community has split into two warring camps, that’s not my fault, or the fault of those who have the more self-consistent of the two models, i.e. the creation model.
“If the scientific community has split into two warring camps”
Except it hasn’t. The scientific community is unanimous when it comes to the age of the Earth, the mythical nature of the global flood and the fact that C14 did not spring into existence 4,000 years ago.
“the more self-consistent of the two models, i.e. the creation model.”
If there is such a thing as a consistent creation model, I take it that Walt Brown’s “theory” is accepted by the creationist mainstream then?
“the more self-consistent of the two models, i.e. the creation model.”
Sorry, I was laughing too hard to reply there.
Read this:
link to reports.ncse.com
The Defeat of Flood Geology by Flood Geology.
This is what happens when you throw peer review out of the window.
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